New Zealanders in Queensland are battening down the hatches or changing their flights home to make a hasty getaway from the state as Tropical Cyclone Alfred approaches.
One man who flew to Brisbane for the now-cancelled GreenDay concert said, like most fans, he was disappointed but completely understood the reasons behind the cancellation.
Modelling shows 20,000 homes in Brisbane are at risk from storm surges and flooding.
The category 2 cyclone made an abrupt westerly turn on Tuesday and began tracking towards the Australian mainland. It is expected to make landfall early on Friday morning.
“Tropical Cyclone Alfred is already bringing gale to storm-force winds, damaging surf and abnormally high tides to the southern Queensland and northern New South Wales coasts; however, areas further inland will begin to experience the onset of damaging to destructive winds and heavy to locally intense rain later today and on Thursday,” Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology posted on social media.
Brisbane airport on 5 March. Photo / Supplied/RNZ
The areas most at risk are Brighton, Windsor, Ashgrove, Morningside, Rocklea, Coopers Plains, Carina, Sandgate, Hemmant, Lota, Tingalpa, Indooroopilly, Albion, Bardon and Wynnum West.
Ryan Allen, a Wellingtonian who flew to Brisbane on Tuesday for the concert, said luckily his mum lived in Wynnum, so it hadn’t been a wasted trip.
“Although expensive, [the trip] was definitely worth it to see Mum,” Allen said.
“Had a chicken parm at the pub last night, and that kind of helped the sorrows a little bit.”
He said he heard about the concert cancellation on social media, and that was quickly followed by an email from the ticketing company and a social media story from the band.
“[It’s] incredibly fair enough, for the safety of all the people working, as well as the audience.”
Ryan Allen has cut his trip to Australia short. Photo / Supplied/RNZ
He said he quickly jumped on the Air New Zealand app and moved his flight forward by a day, as it seemed unlikely his original Thursday flight would go ahead.
The turbulence on the flight over had been intense for the last hour of the journey, which the captain informed passengers was because of the weather system, and Allen hoped the return journey was less bumpy.
On a visit to the supermarket on Tuesday, he said the shelves resembled Covid-19 times. Bottled water and bread shelves were bare, which was “quite an eerie feeling, actually”.
RNZ employee Simon Dickinson, who was in Noosa on a week-long holiday, said he had also shifted flights forward to Wednesday morning, fearing not being able to leave on the original flight on Saturday.
“We thought, well we’re going to be stuck there for a few days, with a high probability of not being able to get to Brisbane airport because it’s a very flood-prone zone around that area there.”
“The key message is that we can expect from this system, along with destructive wind and extensive flooding, most likely major flooding as well as the potential for some dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding,” she says.
NSW SES Commissioner Mike Wassing said emergency services were dealing with “three natural disasters in one”: a combination of strong winds, rainfall and high tides.
Wassing said authorities expected “significant” rainfall that could lead to widespread inundation and isolation.
“It is difficult to predict the rainfall but we are planning for significant rainfall that will see significant inundation, isolation and potential need for evacuation,” he said.
“I want people to act now, relocate now before those circumstances are occurring.”
Officials will open 12 evacuation centres from 4pm Wednesday (local time).
